Wildcat Priority Areas: Conservation Boundaries from 2013-2014 Camera Trapping

Scotland's boundaries for wildcat conservation areas, derived from camera trapping surveys conducted by WildCru over the winter of 2013-2014. The proposed area boundaries were created by Nick Littlewood at the James Hutton Institute, using natural watersheds and water features as geographic limits. The dataset is provided by the Government Digital Service via the EU Open Data platform.

Use Cases

• Prioritizing conservation efforts based on the identified wildcat presence areas.
• Analyzing habitat connectivity and fragmentation using the watershed-based boundaries.
• Planning field surveys or monitoring programs within the defined geographic limits.
• Integrating conservation zones with other land-use or environmental datasets.

Strengths

• Boundaries are derived from a specific scientific survey conducted in winter 2013-2014.
• Geographic limits are based on concrete natural features: watersheds and water features.
• Creation methodology is documented in a referenced Commissioned Report (768).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; data freshness is unverified.
• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service (via eu_open_data), based on work by Nick Littlewood at the James Hutton Institute.

Collection Method

Areas selected based on results of wildcat camera trapping surveys; boundaries created using natural watersheds and water features.

Time Range

Survey data from winter 2013-2014.

Freshness

Data collection occurred in winter 2013-2014; last update date is unknown.

Geography

Scotland (implied by references to NatureScot and the James Hutton Institute).